Future Hopes, page 17
Civil disobedience – refusing to obey a law because you believe it to be unethical, as a form of non-violent protest
Climate – the typical weather patterns in a specific area over a period of time
Climate change – long-term changes to the climate, in this instance usually referring to the warming of Earth’s atmosphere and increased extreme weather patterns
Climate crisis/disaster/emergency – terms used to describe the current state of our world, in which changes to our climate are coming faster than society and nature can adapt to, causing extreme weather patterns and disasters such as wildfires, drought and mass extinction
Climate justice – the effects of climate change are not evenly spread, and those countries with the highest levels of carbon emissions are not necessarily the ones that suffer the most from increased extreme weather patterns. Climate justice looks to ensure that those most vulnerable to climate change receive the financial support and resources that they need.
Ecosystem – all of the living things in an area and the relationships between them and the surrounding environment
Environment – the natural surroundings of a living thing; it also often refers to the natural world more generally
Fossil fuels – natural substances formed underground from the buried remains of living things. Over millions of years of heat and pressure, the remains decompose into substances like coal and oil, which contain carbon. These can be burned to generate energy, releasing large volumes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Geoengineering – a large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s atmosphere or ecosystems that could be used to tackle climate change. For example, spraying chemicals into clouds in order to release rain.
Green energy – energy from renewable sources such as sunlight, wind, rain and the tides, which are constantly replenishing
Greenhouse effect – the result of greenhouse gases absorbing heat from the sun, which stops it from leaving the atmosphere and thus warms the Earth’s surface
Greenhouse gases – gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, which trap heat
Indigenous communities – groups of native people who have historically lived in an environment. Many Indigenous communities serve as guardians of the natural environment and emphasize sustainable balance between humans and nature.
Intercropping – mixing the types of crops grown on farmland in order to reduce pests, maintain healthy soil and use less fertilizer
Mass extinction – the extinction of a large number of species in a relatively short time period. There have been five mass extinctions on Earth, the most recent of which killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Microplastics – extremely small pieces of plastic in the environment resulting from the breakdown of products
Permaculture – farming techniques that use land in ways which mimic nature, to avoid creating unnecessary waste. For example, intercropping or using natural compost instead of chemical fertilizers.
Plastivore – a type of living creature that consumes plastic by breaking down the material; examples are particular bacteria and wax worms
Rehabilitation and restoration – returning an ecosystem such as a flood plain, forest or wetland to its natural state
Rewilding – allowing areas of land to regenerate, sometimes through the reintroduction of key species
Sustainability – ensuring that the way we live now does not use up resources which cannot be replaced, so that this way of life can be maintained for many years to come
Tipping point – an event that will cause irreversible changes to the climate, with very serious implications for the future of our planet
LEARNING RESOURCES
Websites
Campaign CC
https://www.campaigncc.org/schoolresources
Leeds DEC
https://leedsdec.org.uk/climate-action-resources/
Teach the Future
https://www.teachthefuture.uk/
Thoughtbox Education’s “Changing Climates Curriculum”
https://www.thoughtboxeducation.com/climatecurriculum
Climate Kids NASA
https://climatekids.nasa.gov/
Climate Generation
https://climategen.org/resources/
World Wildlife Fund Climate Change Resources
https://www.wwf.org.uk/get-involved/schools/resources/climate-change-resources
Climate Fiction Writers League
https://climate-fiction.org/
Oxfam Education
https://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/classroom-resources/climate-challenge/
Practical Action
https://practicalaction.org/schools/
Science Museum
https://learning.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/resources/?topic=climate
Sustainability and Environmental Education (SEEd)
https://se-ed.co.uk/
UNESCO
https://en.unesco.org/themes/education/sdgs/material
Project Drawdown
https://drawdown.org/
Encounter Edu
https://encounteredu.com/teacher-resources
More Than Weeds
https://morethanweeds.co.uk/
Good Energy Playbook
https://www.goodenergystories.com/playbook
CLPE
https://clpe.org.uk/
ESA
https://climate.esa.int/en/educate/climate-for-schools/
Action Aid
https://www.actionaid.org.uk/get-involved/school-resources
Make a Change
https://ashivy3.wixsite.com/ecoschoolresources
Eco Schools
https://www.eco-schools.org.uk/
Heated
https://heated.world/archive
While Walker Books uses reasonable efforts to include up-to-date information about resources available, we cannot guarantee accuracy and all such resources are provided for informational purposes only.
Books
Fiction for Younger Readers
Twitch by M. G. Leonard
Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun by Tọlá Okogwu
Savi and the Memory Keeper by Bijal Vachharajani
The Letterbox Tree by Rebecca Lim and Kate Gordon
Drawn to Change the World anthology, edited by Emma Reynolds
Melt by Ele Fountain
The Last Bear by Hannah Gold, illustrated by Levi Pinfold
Beauty and the Bin by Joanne O’Connell
The First Rule of Climate Club by Carrie Firestone
Kat Wolfe on Thin Ice by Lauren St John
Kidnap at Mystery Island by Carol Garden
Breaker by Annemarie Allan
How to Save the World with a Chicken and an Egg by Emma Shevah
Hope Jones Saves the World by Josh Lacey, illustrated by Beatriz Castro
Fiction for Older Readers
Green Rising by Lauren James
Dry by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
Wolf Light by Yaba Badoe
Burning Sunlight by Anthea Simmons
The Summer We Turned Green by William Sutcliffe
Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta
If Not Us by Mark Smith
The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin
The Girl Who Broke the Sea by A. Connors
The Last Whale by Chris Vick
Non-Fiction for Younger Readers
A Short Hopeful Guide to Climate Change by Oisín McGann
Kids Fight Plastic, Kids Fight Climate Change and Kids Fight Extinction by Martin Dorey, illustrated by Tim Wesson
This Book Is Not Rubbish: 50 Ways to Ditch Plastic, Reduce Rubbish and Save the World by Isabel Thomas, illustrated by Alex Paterson
How You Can Save the Planet by Hendrikus van Hensbergen
Non-Fiction for Older Readers and Adults
The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate by Naomi Klein
All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson
How to Talk About Climate Change in a Way That Makes a Difference by Rebecca Huntley
There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years by Mike Berners-Lee
Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm by Isabella Tree
What We Need to Do Now: For a Zero Carbon Future by Chris Goodall
This Is Not a Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook by Extinction Rebellion
CONTRIBUTORS
LAUREN JAMES is the Carnegie-longlisted author of many young adult novels, including Green Rising, The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker, The Quiet at the End of the World and The Loneliest Girl in the Universe. She is an RLF Royal Fellow at Aston University and the story consultant on Netflix’s Heartstopper (Seasons 2 and 3).
Her books have sold over two hundred thousand copies worldwide in seven languages. The Quiet at the End of the World was shortlisted for the YA Book Prize and the STEAM Children’s Book Award.
Lauren is the founder of the Climate Fiction Writers’ League, and a member of the Society of Authors’ Sustainability Committee. She works as a consultant on climate storytelling for museums, production companies, major brands and publishers, with a focus on optimism and hope. She lives in Coventry, where she also runs a Queer Writers group.
NICOLA DAVIES is an award-winning author and zoologist, renowned for her bestselling nature writing and fiction. Nicola worked for the BBC Natural History Unit for many years as a researcher and presenter for a number of natural history programmes, and was one of the original presenters of The Really Wild Show.
Following the start of her writing career, Nicola became a senior lecturer in creative writing at Bath Spa University, but she has been writing full time for over a decade. She is the author of more than fifty books for children, and her work has been published in more than ten different languages, as well as winning major awards in the UK, US, France, Italy and Germany.
Nicola lives in Wales.
ELI BROWN is the author of the middle-grade novel Oddity, a gritty alternate historical fantasy. He is also the author of two books for adults: his debut novel, The Great Days, won the Fabri Prize for Literature, while his culinary pirate novel, Cinnamon and Gunpowder, was a finalist for the California Book Award.
A Yaddo fellow and featured reader at Litquake, Eli lives with his family and thirty hens on a small farm in northern California, USA.
L. R. LAM was first Californian and is now Scottish. They are the Sunday Times bestselling and award-winning author of Dragonfall (the Dragon Scales trilogy), the Seven Devils duology (co-written with Elizabeth May), Goldilocks, the Pacifica novels False Hearts and Shattered Minds, and the Micah Grey trilogy, which begins with Pantomime.
L. R. Lam’s short fiction and essays have appeared in anthologies such as Nasty Women, Solaris Rising, Cranky Ladies of History and Scotland in Space. They are also a writing coach at The Novelry. L. R. Lam lives in Edinburgh.
M. G. LEONARD is the award-winning, bestselling writer of children’s books such as Beetle Boy, the Adventures on Trains series and the Twitchers books. Her work has been translated into forty languages and Beetle Boy is currently in development as a TV series. She has won many awards, including Best Crime Fiction Novel for Children, Sainsbury’s Children’s Book of the Year, The British Book Awards’ Children’s Fiction Book of the Year and the Branford Boase Award.
M. G. Leonard is a vice-president of insect charity Buglife and one of the founders of Authors4Oceans. She lives between the South Downs and the sea.
REBECCA LIM is an award-winning Australian writer, illustrator and editor, and the author of over twenty books, including Tiger Daughter, which was a Kirkus, Amazon and Booklist Best Book, CBCA Book of the Year: Older Readers and Victorian Premier’s Literary Award-winner; The Astrologer’s Daughter, a Kirkus Best Book and CBCA Notable Book; and the bestselling Mercy. Her work has been shortlisted for numerous prizes and published in eight languages.
Rebecca is a co-founder of the Voices from the Intersection initiative and co-editor of Meet Me at the Intersection, a groundbreaking anthology of YA #OwnVoice memoir, poetry and fiction. She lives in Melbourne, Australia.
OISÍN McGANN is a bestselling and award-winning writer and illustrator. He has produced dozens of books and short stories for all ages of reader, including twelve novels, in genres ranging from comedy horror to conspiracy thriller, from science fiction and fantasy to historical fiction.
In 2014 and 2015, he was the Irish writer-in-residence for Weather Stations, an EU-funded project where writers from five different countries were tasked with finding ways to use storytelling to raise awareness of climate change. He has carried on this work through school residencies in primary and secondary schools, and in 2021 he published A Short Hopeful Guide to Climate Change in collaboration with Friends of the Earth.
Oisín lives somewhere in the Irish countryside, where he won’t be heard shouting at his computer.
TỌLÁ OKOGWU was born in Nigeria but raised in London, and is an award-winning author and journalist. Her picture book Daddy Do My Hair is a firm family favourite and celebrates the bond between a father and child, while also showcasing the beauty of Afro textured hair. The first book in her middle-grade series, Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun, won the Children’s Africana Award for Older Readers and was also shortlisted for The British Book Awards and the inaugural The Week Junior Book Awards.
Tọlá also writes a young fiction series with Jasmine Richards under the name Lola Morayo. She lives in Kent.
NEAL SHUSTERMAN is an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty books for children, teens and adults. These include the acclaimed Arc of a Scythe series (Scythe, Thunderhead and The Toll), Dry and Roxy, as well as the Unwind dystology and Challenger Deep, which won a National Book Award. Neal also writes screenplays for film and television. He lives in Florida, USA.
BRENDAN SHUSTERMAN is an illustrator, poet and author. He has previously collaborated with his father, Neal Shusterman, on a short story for the anthology Violent Ends, and his artwork also appears in Neal’s award-winning novel Challenger Deep.
LOUIE STOWELL writes stories about magic, gods and monsters (mostly). She has written carefully researched books about space, ancient Egypt, politics and science, but eventually lapsed into just making stuff up. Having written fiction for 8–10 year olds, her Loki series was her first as both author and illustrator, and was an instant Sunday Times bestseller, as well as winning the 2023 FCBG Children’s Book Award.
Louie loves comics, science fiction, fantasy and anything funny, as well as woods, urban foxes and mythology. She lives in London.
BIJAL VACHHARAJANI is usually found writing, reading or editing a children’s book. She is the author of multiple planet-friendly books, including the AutHer Award-winning novels A Cloud Called Bhura and Savi and the Memory Keeper. She has rescued animals, edited a magazine called Time Out Bengaluru and is part of the founding team of the Nalanda Abhiyan Library movement. She lives in Bengaluru in India with a ginormous mural and a zombie aloe vera plant. She’s a certified climate worrier.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.
First published 2024 by Walker Books Ltd
87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ
Anthology © 2024 Lauren James
Anthologist/editor text © 2024 Lauren James
Foreword © 2024 Nicola Davies
“Float” © 2024 Eli Brown; “The Invisible Girl and the Impossible Otter”
© 2024 Laura Lam; “Food of the Future” © M. G. Leonard Ltd;
“The Lighthouse Keeper’s Garden” © 2024 Rebecca Lim; “Eyeballs, Tentacles and Teeth” © 2024 Oisín McGann; “Saving Olumide” © 2024 Tọlá Okogwu;
“Dump Devil” © 2024 Neal Shusterman and Brendan Shusterman; “They Came Back”
© 2024 Louie Stowell; “The Drongo’s Call” © 2024 Bijal Vachharajani
Cover illustration © 2024 David Litchfield
The rights of the above to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-5295-2110-8
www.walker.co.uk
Lauren James, Future Hopes
